Reconstructed
by Serpent In Red
Summary: With Lord Voldemort vanquished, everything was supposed to return to normal - that was what Hermione thought, until a soft whisper coming from the room that should've been destroyed beckoned her curiosity and lured her into finding the answers to the enigmas.


******Disclaimer**: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros. Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

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**A/N**: The lemon-less version was written for fourdoornightclub, as a part of the fic-exchange challenge at our Tomione forum.

For those of you who are interested in lemon, there's a different version of this story over at AO3 (Archive of Our Own), AFFnet, and GrangerEnchanted (if and when it gets approved). The links to the AO3 and AFFnet versions will be posted on my profile once I get them up.

~-0-~

_Many thanks to Nerys for beta-ing this chapter. Huge, huge thanks to Lady Miya and Nerys for brainstorming with me when I wrote myself into a corner._

~-0-~

**Reconstructed**

"And if I find you out in the hallways again, I won't be just docking points from your House, Goyle; I'm taking you directly to Professor McGonagall," Hermione Granger said stonily, staring down the Slytherin who was quite a bit taller than her.

Muttering something incoherent, Goyle hurried in the other direction towards the Slytherin dungeons. Hermione watched until he was well out of sight before heaving a sigh, turning on her heels, and walking up the stairs to the next floor.

Once she reached the top of the stairs, her good mood came right back to her. It was wonderful to be back at one of her most favorite places in the world. Not only that, she had her beloved books, schoolwork, and homework back. After that wretched year of camping, this was refreshing to say the least, and basically, even the task of having to look after the trouble-makers was much more enjoyable than it used to be.

Doing the rounds wasn't too much of a burden; given her new status as a war hero, the younger students almost readily gave her the respect, with or without the Head Girl badge pinned to her robes.

Well, except for the occasional, snarky Slytherin lurking around.

But other than that, all was well.

And then, she finally reached the last floor that she was supposed to patrol for the night—the seventh floor. As with the other floors, the seventh floor was empty, and the corridors were softly lit by the occasional candelabras hanging from the walls.

A yell of frustration, followed by maniacal cackling, erupted from somewhere inside the castle, and it took Hermione a short moment to realize that the voices belonged to Filch and Peeves. Absentmindedly, a light smile appeared at the corner of her lips as she wondered what Peeves had done to irritate the caretaker yet again, and shaking her head, she walked around the corner and down the corridor.

That was when she heard it.

Her shoes screeched almost too loudly in the silent hallways, caused by her abrupt stop.

If it were during the day, she most certainly would've missed it—or maybe she wouldn't have. Normal whispers wouldn't have caused her skin to crawl after all, regardless of how ghostlike, eerie it was.

This one, however … it was almost as if the owner of the voice was standing somewhere close to her.

Her eyes flashed around, taking in the environment around her. They landed on the tapestry to the left of her, and with a start, she realized that it depicted Barnabas the Barmy. A frown appeared on her forehead, since she knew that there were no possible hiding places around this area. She became quite well-acquainted with this area after her fifth year, dodging Umbridge and the Inquisitorial Squad as she made her way to the Room of Requirement.

"Peeves, is that you? Reveal yourself!" Hermione commanded.

She waited for a short moment, and yet, there were no signs of humans or ghosts. For that, she was sure that it was not Peeves who had played the "practical joke." It was common knowledge amongst students that the poltergeist wasn't fond of "staying in the dark," so to speak, after being caught at his pranks.

Then, she heard _**that**_ sound—voice—again, and her breath hitched.

Slowly, she turned around, until she was facing the wall to her right—where the Room of Requirement was supposed to be.

She was certain that the voice came from there now, but she had no idea who or _**what**_ it was.

Her hand formed a tight grip around the handle of her wand as she took tentative steps towards where the entrance to the Room of Requirement was supposed to be. Almost obsessively, her eyes searched over every inch of the wall, trying to find some clues as to what she had heard but to no avail. There were no marks on the wall whatsoever. She hadn't passed by the wall three times, wishing for something, so there were no doors there either.

In fact, she wasn't even sure if the Room of Requirement worked any longer after Crabbe set the Fiendfyre Curse and burnt down the whole room.

Would the room automatically repair itself? _**Could**_ the room automatically repair itself? She had no idea. This wasn't something that was documented down in books, and after the final battle, she hadn't even thought about coming to the Room of Requirement again. The well-being of the room wasn't exactly high on her priority list after all. Now, however, it appeared that she should've checked it out the first free moment she had.

She ran the fingers of her left hand gently over the wall in front of her. Then, she took a slow step backwards, never letting her eyes waver. When she stopped, she raised her wand and started flicking different counter-spells at the wall.

Nothing happened.

Her frown grew deeper. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew that the logical thing to do would be to search out one of the professors, or perhaps even Professor McGonagall herself. However ... there was a part of her that shunned the idea of searching out for help. If it were nothing more than a joke from one of the students who were still out of bed, she would forever become the laughingstock of Gryffindor.

And besides, she had survived much more than this. A simple, unexplained whispering in the middle of the seventh floor corridor did not call for a reaction as huge as reporting to the Headmistress of Hogwarts. Besides, there were many unexplained things in Hogwarts. Perhaps this was just another one of them.

Nonetheless … Hermione's curiosity was spiked. Or perhaps it was the stubbornness inherently in her. She wanted to know what was going on, and since spells didn't work, she was left with one last option: making the Room of Requirement appear.

Strangely enough, that thought, in and of itself, made her wary. She had no idea why. It was just a room after all.

_A room where Lord Voldemort had hidden his Horcrux_.

That thought came unbidden to her mind, and she shook her head, mentally laughing at her brain for even thinking of that. Lord Voldemort was dead. Everyone knew that. They'd seen him die right in front of them months ago.

Taking a deep sigh and shaking her head, she determinedly decided to go through with her plan and without further ado, walked past the wall three times.

_I need a room filled with chamberpots. I need a room filled with chamberpots. I need a room filled with chamberpots._

Out of random, she used the wish she'd heard from Harry that Dumbledore had used so many years ago, and a sigh of relief left her lips when a door formed in the wall. A smile touched upon her lips as she walked up to and stared at the door that had appeared. It was obvious that she had been silly; there was obviously no one else using the Room of Requirement. Even if there had been, she shouldn't have been able to hear voices from inside the room.

Regardless of that …

The smile was wiped from her face the moment she heard that whispery voice _**again**_.

She had no doubt this time; it was coming from the direction of the door. But she was right in front of it. There was no way there could be something or someone standing there. However, she knew she hadn't heard wrong. Her heart thudding heavily against her chest, she let her hand rest on the door that was seemingly made of fine redwood. Without noticing it, she was taking shorter, sharper breaths, and tightening her grip around her wand, she leaned forward and pressed her ear against the door.

The anticipation was dizzying, and the short span of time she stood there seemed like a lifetime; however, she didn't hear so much as a peep. Her eyes flickered downwards and landed on the single brass doorknob. She allowed her hand to drop down onto it.

Biting down hard on the inside of her cheeks, she held the doorknob firmly in her hand, turned it and opened the door.

The doorknob slipped out of her hand and the door slammed into the wall, but nothing impacted Hermione; instead, she was sucked into the room, as if there were some kind of tornado inside the Room of Requirement. She didn't even have the chance to scream; she was pelted across the air at an alarming rate, and before she could even pull out her wand, she crashed onto the floor, impacted her head, and passed out.

~-0-~

She had no idea how much time had passed. For all she knew, it could be morning again. The only thing she could concentrate on was the splitting headache she was having the moment she came to again.

_It must be from the impact._

Groggily, she opened her eyes and found herself sitting in unfamiliar, yet at the same time, familiar surroundings. The hand that had been rubbing the sore spot stopped in its motions, and she felt a biting coldness run down her spine. She was in the Room of Requirement, and it wasn't filled with chamberpots.

It was the same one Riddle had hidden his Horcrux in.

The frightening thing was that it was _**exactly**_ the same. She remembered the stacks of books sitting a little less than five feet away from her, due to the ridiculous portrait of kissing frogs behind it. She had gone this way a few months earlier when she had come here with Harry, looking for the Horcruxes, and she recalled thinking about how stupid it was for one of the previous students to treasure portraits of kissing frogs.

No, no, no. This couldn't be. That room had been destroyed by the Crabbe's Fiendfyre Curse. This couldn't be the same room as that one. And all the things in that room had been destroyed. They must have been destroyed. A small shiver ran through her body involuntarily at the thought of Riddle's Horcrux still being around.

"Confused, are we?" a voice suddenly spoke up and, though soft, broke the silence of the room.

She froze as the voice registered in her mind and latched onto a specific memory, identifying who was talking. She doubted she would ever forget that voice, since for as long as she had worn Slytherin's locket, it had whispered to her in her mind, spoken to her during the nights.

This had to be some kind of nightmare. This couldn't be true. _**He**_ couldn't be alive. She'd seen him die in front of her. She'd seen that god-damned tiara Horcrux fall into that sea of flames. She must've hurt her head too hard to be having these kinds of hallucinations. Or maybe she wasn't even conscious right now. That was why she was hearing his voice again—her fear of _**him**_ being alive had conjured this kind of nightmare up for her.

Yet, regardless of what she mentally told herself, she couldn't help but feel her muscles tense up as the handsomest man she had ever seen step out of the shadows. His pale skin seemed to glow under the minimal amount of lighting in the room and, rather than make him look sickly, made his perfect features stand out even more. His dark eyes had fairly noticeable specks of red in them, but that did nothing to diminish his charm; high cheekbones accentuated that straight nose of his; and those full, kissable lips were now curved upwards into a wicked, vile smirk.

"Riddle," she whispered, her eyes wide. "… Voldemort."

A flash of annoyance flashed through his eyes so quickly that she almost missed it. However, the smirk on his face never wavered.

"Very good, Hermione Granger," he said in that signature soft voice of his, and that was when she noticed the wand inside his hand—her wand.

Out of reflex, her hand flew over to the pocket that was supposed to hold her wand, but of course it wasn't there. She knew it wouldn't be. Nonetheless, she couldn't deny that little flicker of wishful thinking that the wand he was holding simply looked like her wand.

"Now, I think regardless how affected you are by your unfortunate, filthy blood, your current situation should be rather obvious," he said, sliding a single finger down the length of her wand.

Briefly, her eyebrows furrowed as she stared at her wand, wanting him to get his filthy paws off it. When her eyes flickered upwards to meet his, she found his smirk had widened, as if he realized what she was thinking—or perhaps he did know, being the Legilimens master that he was.

"Let's make things easier for the both of us, Mudblood. You will do everything as I say, without resistance or questions. I trust I wouldn't have to warn you that defying me is detrimental to your own health," he said in a business-like tone of voice.

Her body shook, though she had no idea if it were from fear or anger; maybe it was a combination of both. However, she did know one thing, and she wasn't shy about letting him know what it was.

"You're obviously overrated for your intelligence if you think that I don't see that either way I'll still die in the end. You're not getting anything from me, Riddle," she said fiercely.

In the worst situation, she would just kill herself. He couldn't possibly cast that quickly to prevent her from committing suicide. If she were lucky enough, she would get out of this terrifying nightmare. If not, at least she wouldn't have betrayed the wizarding world and, most importantly, Harry.

Briefly, Riddle's eyes narrowed, but then he tilted his head slightly upwards and glanced at her with an appraising look before all expressions slipped away from his features, leaving behind a detached coldness.

"If you know so much about me, then you should also know that resistance is futile, and following what I tell you do will be much more desirable," he said. "I'm not Bella, Mudblood. My knowledge in spells pertaining to torture is much vaster than that little brain of yours can comprehend—"

A derisive snort left Hermione before she interrupted loudly, "Then funny how you've always opted to use just the Unforgivables when torturing your victims. Wow, that's a hell of a lot of variety."

With a flick of _**her**_ wand, she flew up into the air and landed some five feet away from where she had been previously. Suddenly, the nausea attacked her, and she doubled over, dry-heaving on the floor while a splitting headache formed. Meanwhile, her limbs began to twitch out of control.

"You were saying, Mudblood?" he asked quietly.

She could almost imagine him quirking his eyebrow in that trademark, snotty Slytherin-ish way. However, she couldn't say anything snarky about it at the moment; the combined effects of what she was going through was worse than anything she had ever experienced.

_Note to self numero uno: Never dare the Dark Lord._

After what seemed like an eternity, he finally lifted the spell. Fresh air and headache-less moments had never been more appreciated than right now as she panted, splayed across the floor of the Room of Requirement.

She knew more pain was to come; she knew that she would probably die at the hands of the somehow revived Lord Voldemort. Nevertheless, little did she know that the future was far more creative than she had thought. At the moment, she could only concentrate at the task on hand: How to prevent him from getting more information from her. If she kept him talking, perhaps that could stall him. After all, Harry did mention that Voldemort, regardless of what age, looks, and era, couldn't stop chatting once he started. In fact, perhaps her imminent death could be prevented, too.

When she finally moved, she was hardly surprised to find soreness in her whole body, and the simple task of pushing herself up was a burden in and of itself.

"You're supposed to be dead. I—we saw you die," she said with some difficulty.

A sneer appeared on that handsome face of his, and he said, "Did you actually think that I would only use one form of method to maintain my immortality? I'm surprised Harry Potter was so naïve to believe that … not to mention the fact that I did let slip that night at the graveyard that I've gone further than anyone else to achieve immortality. Of course, it also took a bit … let's say, ingenuity on my part. No one else had made the connection between the Room of Requirement and the magic of the four Founders. Nobody had even thought about looking deeper into the origins of the Room of Requirement."

He paused here and his sneer took on a hint of smugness as he gazed at Hermione.

"Did you honestly think that I would just leave my Horcrux in here without any protection?"

Yes.

But she would never tell him that. To be honest, after seeing the protection placed on the locket Horcrux and hearing from Harry about how vigorously and viciously the diary Horcrux had attacked before it was destroyed, she did find the lack of protection on subsequent Horcruxes odd. But she _**saw**_ Lord Voldemort die on the day of the final battle at Hogwarts, so all thoughts about the strangeness of that easy defeat flew out of her mind. The hard-earned peace and _no more camping_ were much too appealing to Hermione.

"No, the secret to the Room of Requirement was to ask exactly what you wanted, and I did just that," Riddle said with a satisfied look on his face.

_To ensure his immortality. That was what he wanted. Oh, dear Merlin, we've just assumed that he would've asked for a place to hide his Horcrux; we haven't thought that he would add other things into his request._

"But you're still in here. Since you're—"

She eyed him from head to toe and then back again.

"—supposedly alive again, I would've thought that your priority was to go out there and murder a couple of your archenemies," she said.

"Such as you," he added for her.

Subconsciously, she tilted her head higher, as if she were daring him to do so right then and there. He raised an eyebrow at her action, and amusement flashed through his eyes. Nonetheless, he spoke nothing about her attitude, and he didn't answer her query.

The seconds continued to tick by, and Hermione wasn't keen about getting tortured again if she could help it. Therefore, she spoke instead.

"You've chosen to stay in here. You've been known to bide your time, patient in waiting for the perfect moment, or what you deem is the perfect moment to strike—"

It had started off as babbling on her part, a ploy to get him talking again. However, slowly, it turned into an intricate puzzle or mystery to Hermione, something that made her want to find an answer to.

"—I heard that whispering out in the hallway—that must have been you," she continued to say.

Surprisingly, he didn't make any moves to stop her. In fact, he kept silent, eying her with an unreadable expression on his face.

"But I couldn't have been the only student—person to have walked past the Room of Requirement. Filch wouldn't have let this corridor gone unsupervised after what happened in the last two to three years. After that final battle, a lot of students would've known about the Room of Requirement, so why hadn't they come here? Or did you specify—Oh! That's because the Room of Requirement would be considered occupied once you were brought back to corporeal form. So even if one of the other students did asked for the Room of Requirement to appear, it wouldn't, unless they've asked for the specific room that you were hiding in. But I asked for a room full of chamberpots—"

She ignored the amused look that appeared on Riddle's face and continued her deduction.

"—and _**this**_ isn't the room full of chamberpots. So … why did the door appear for me? Unless that wasn't what made the door appear. Unless your specifications weren't just limited to what we have in mind," she said, the frown on her face becoming more and more apparent as she couldn't find the right answers to her questions.

"Oh no," he suddenly interrupted, his voice no louder than it was before, but it successfully stopped her in her monologue.

She gazed at him, eagerness for an answer overcoming the fear that she had for him. Nonetheless, there was something else in her heart—an inexplicable fear. Why did she fear the answer? Perhaps it was because that look on his face was far too victorious and mocking, both at the same time. Or perhaps the person telling her the answer was him, period. She didn't trust ninety percent of the things that came out of his mouth, and he had every reason to lie to her right now. Regardless, she took whatever clues he was willing to give her right now.

"The Room of Requirement did … tap into your mind, so to speak. But it wasn't answering to your needs—or rather, it wasn't answering to your _**pointless **_needs," said Riddle.

Hermione nearly rolled her eyes. She supposed Dark Lords didn't need to go to the loo every so often. Or maybe it had something to do with the resurrection and certain parts of his body.

Not knowing what was going through Hermione's head—or maybe, just ignoring her thoughts—he continued, "You crave power, Hermione Granger. That was what attracted you to the doorway in the first place."

His eyes flickered over to the Head Girl badge pinned to her robes.

"You enjoy the power that you've gotten because of your title. You like bossing people around because _**you can**_. Not because it is your responsibility or because you could get in trouble for not doing it—"

"That's such a general emotion," she cut in, her face slightly red from his assessment. "Nearly every Slythe—a lot of students in this school have that tendency. You can't possibly let someone like Goyle walk past this corridor without hearing a peep and then telling me that that was what allowed me to hear the whispering."

A disdainful sound left his lips, and he said, "Did you really think that someone with Goyle's intelligence would pick up on the whispering he's heard in the corridors?"

In spite of herself, Hermione snorted in agreement. Then, his words made something click inside her head.

"Intelligence—_**that**_ was your other requirement?" she asked, surprised.

Again, he did not answer, but the look on his face was enough to confirm her suspicions. That made the wheels in her mind turn even faster. Why did he need someone with intelligence? Surely, any average person could open the door for him. And that brought her back to her original question: Why did he need someone else to open the door for him in the first place?

Then, it hit her. However, her eyes took on a haunted look, and her voice was a whisper as she spoke the next words, "The Room of Requirement didn't completely resurrect you … until _**I**_ opened the door."

Surprised, he observed Hermione with a different look on his face. Yet, it was still indecipherable to her. Seconds later, his mask of indifference slid back again.

"Very good, Hermione Granger. I can see why the Room of Requirement deemed you as intelligent."

That took her slightly aback. Did she just receive a compliment from Lord Voldemort, the hater of all things Muggle? Nonetheless, she shook that feeling off and placed her attention back on question at hand.

"That still doesn't explain why you needed someone intelligent to open that door," she pointed out, frowning as she thought of the possibilities. "It can't be because that person had to have some form of intelligence to open that door. Tons of people had been using this room for years …"

Not to mention _**Draco Malfoy**_ had been coming into this room for the whole of sixth year. Well, okay, so he wasn't exactly stupid, but Hermione couldn't resist making a mental, snarky comment at ferret junior.

"Since you made sure to use that specification, that means that it must have some kind of immediate effect on you or there are subsequent events that requires that particular trait in a person," she deduced, the frown growing deeper and deeper. "Absorbing some of the person's intelligence if they open the door? No, that can't be, since I sincerely doubt the almighty Lord Voldemort would deem anyone more intelligent than he is."

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes, given that the man in question was standing right there. However, that meant that there was only one possible reason why he needed someone with brains to open the door.

"I'm _**not**_ doing anything for you," she said stonily, narrowing her eyes at him.

"I don't think you have a choice in this matter, Mudblood," he said.

"You're not forcing me to do anything. Watch me botch up everything you want me to do, Riddle," she threatened, though she knew that it had lesser impact than it should have, given that he could easily use the Imperius Curse on her to make her do what he wanted.

And the smirk on his face did not make her feel any better. In fact, it made her even more frightened, since she had no idea what was going through his mind.

"And—"

"In due time, Hermione Granger. In due time, you'll find out everything. However, for the time being, I think a little rest might do you well," he said, and with a flick of her wand, all went black.

~-0-~

The smell of food caused her stomach to grumble and, at the same time, woke her up. When she opened her eyes, she froze, not recognizing the place she was in, until what happened before she fell unconscious came rushing back to her. Her eyes then landed on the culprit and narrowed.

"Good morning," he greeted her from the chair he was sitting in, as if they were friends and she had not just woken up from the marble floor moments ago.

That made her even more cautious, if that were possible. Picking up on her thoughts and emotions, amusement flashed through his eyes again.

_He seems happy. Now that's even more of a reason to be careful._

"Hungry?" he asked.

Yes, was the unspoken answer. However, she sure as hell wasn't going to eat anything he gave her.

"I've made us breakfast," said he, waving a hand towards the table laden with food next to him.

He made it? Definitely _**not**_ touching it.

Perhaps her expression showed it, or maybe it was her lack of movement, but he continued looking at her in silence as his amused smile gradually grew more and more apparent.

"You do realize that poisoning you through food isn't quite as … entertaining as other spells and curses that I know, don't you?" he asked.

"Getting poisoned is the last thing that's on my list of worries right now, thank you very much," she answered, a wry smile on her face.

"Ah … afraid of Veritaserum, I presume."

"Amongst other things," she admitted with a shrug.

"I suppose it's a reasonable fear," he conceded, his dark eyes glinting merrily in the candlelight. A short moment of silence followed before he offered, "If it makes you feel better, I can take a bite out of everything before you eat."

"Oh, like I don't know that you could've taken the antidote beforehand," she said with a snort.

Raising an eyebrow, he placed both elbows on his knees, leaned forward, and gazed at her. "You do realize that if I'd wanted to use Veritaserum, I could've easily done so by force-feeding it to you, and I wouldn't need to spend so much time tricking you."

With another shrug, she said, "Maybe you just wanted the rush of joy in watching me willingly eat it."

He chuckled upon hearing her words. "I suppose that would've been a delightful endeavor, especially the moment when you realize what happened and start attacking me like the mascot of your House."

Without saying another word, he turned away from her towards the table and started scooping things onto his plate. She had no idea if it were her imagination, but the sweet aroma of food seemed to grow stronger. After watching him take a few bites, she tentatively got up from the floor and approached the table. As she got a clearer view of the toasted bread, different varieties of eggs, sausages, and ham, her tummy let out another groan of protest. Though Riddle didn't say anything, she did not dare to look towards him, afraid of seeing that mocking look in his eyes. When he raised a glass of pumpkin juice to his lips, she was viciously reminded of also how thirsty she was, and as if the gods were against her, her throat seemed to grow more parched in a matter of seconds.

Biting down hard on the insides of her cheeks, she turned around, away from the tempting vision in front of her, and thoroughly ignored the short laugh that came from the vicious man sitting behind her. She hardly worried about him trying to curse her from behind; if he'd wanted to curse her, she was sure he could do it while she was facing him anyway.

Instead, she concentrated on looking at the room. She had no idea where they were, and there were no windows to give her any clues as to their location. A table, similar to the one they'd used to use in Potions labs but much larger, stood a small distance away from where she was standing with a sink beside it. Behind the table was a door, and she wondered where it led to. She stowed it away to the back of her mind, keeping note that it might be a possible route of escape.

Next to the doorway were three bookshelves, and her breath hitched as she realized how many books there were in there. She couldn't see all of the titles from where she was standing, but the little amount that she did told her enough—each of them were hard-to-get books that were either banned or out of print. Her eyes glowed as she rolled up her hands into fists, trying to control the urge to rush over and start perusing each and every one of them. The temptation was much more terrible than the one before, and it was so very difficult to control herself.

_No … must not give in to the Dark Lord … the Dark Arts are very tempting … as Professor Moody, or rather, Barty Crouch Jr. had said in class in the past, touch it and it would be very hard to let go. Well, he would've known better than anyone else. Must not touch … those books are dangerous … but … but not all of them are books of the Dark Arts … not all of them are banned tomes …_

She felt herself salivating, and it was so hard to prevent herself from drooling on the spot. For a moment, she'd almost forgotten that the Dark Lord himself was sitting behind her; the smell of food had rapidly decreased in its appeal as she continued to look at the books longingly.

_Just one look … it wouldn't do much harm if I just took one peek, would it? It's not like I'm planning on practicing the Dark Arts. Barty Crouch Jr. said that _**touching**_ it would make it hard to let go. If I don't practice it, it wouldn't count as touching it. I'm merely reading it. So that's a big difference right there. Professor Dumbledore read books about the Horcruxes, and nothing happened to him …_

"See something you like?" someone's voice came from behind her.

"Hm? Oh …"

It took her brain a moment to remember whose voice that belonged to before she was harshly reminded that it would be impossible to "just take a peek" at the books with Riddle sitting there. A frown appeared on her face as she wondered if he would ever leave the room. Perhaps when he went to the loo?

He laughed, and she wondered momentarily if it were because he'd found out what she was thinking.

_Must be a trap … he somehow knew that I loved books, so he's trying to set some kind of trap there to lure me into it. __Must not touch the books, must not touch … Oh dear Merlin, why must he torture me so?_

She felt the hate she had for the man sitting behind her rapidly increase. Good thing she'd always thought the prophecy was a load of tosh anyway, so she wasn't going to wait around for Harry to get to the Dark Lord Extraordinaire. Before she killed him, she was going to get those three bookshelves to stuff themselves down his throat.

While she read the books on the side.

~-0-~

"I'm actually quite surprised you've never asked about our location," he mentioned one day.

She looked at him in surprise. "You mean, we're not in the Room of Requirement anymore?"

He shook his head, a small smile touching the corner of his lips. "No."

With the tip of her fork, she pushed a piece of potato around on her plate before stabbing into it and bringing it up to her lips.

"Well, it would be a pointless attempt, wouldn't it? Asking you where we are?" asked Hermione after swallowing the food in her mouth.

He smiled. "You never know. I might've been … in a good enough mood to share that information."

She took another look at him, saw a touch of slyness to his smile, and concluded that he was showing that to her on purpose. After spending such a long time with him, she had come to understand that if this wizard wanted to hide his emotions from her, he could do it flawlessly and effortlessly. Or at least, it wouldn't be as conspicuous as right now.

To be honest, she had no idea how many days had passed, especially since she hadn't thought of a way to tell time until quite a few days after they've come to this room. It was a crude method, but she had no other way—there were no hourglasses or clocks in the room. She'd checked every corner and wall one day and found no windows. The only doorway in the room led to the bathroom, which also had no windows. She knew that there must be some way out of the room, but it was hidden from view. The couple of times when he had gone out, he'd used Apparition, so she had no idea how to trigger the secret exit to show itself. She'd checked every figurine, bookshelf, and item in the room while he was gone, trying to see if one of them would open a hidden door but to no avail.

She'd never tried wandless Apparition before, but even though there was the possibility of getting herself Splinched, she'd still attempted it. Alas, it didn't work. In frustration, she'd tried other wandless magic that she knew she could do, but they, too, did not work. It was then that she realized that her magic was under suppression, wherever she was.

In retrospect, she felt a bit stupid about her actions—if the doorway were so easily found, he wouldn't have allowed her to be alone in there.

On top of everything else, she had no direct way of telling what time it was. The only way she could guess the hour of the day was from when he served food. Under all other circumstances, she might've found it funny that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named himself was the one cooking and washing the dishes. However, there was no one else to share that joke with right now, so she could only amuse herself about it before she fell asleep at "night."

It had been "days" since she'd finally given in and started to eat, since she realized how silly and pointless it had been to refuse eating. If she continued starving herself, even if she were presented with the possibility to escape, she wouldn't have been able to put it through.

However, despite how tempting it was, she hadn't touched the books. It remained a forbidden area to her, and she forced herself to not even glance towards it.

Interactions with him had been civil, which was surprising to Hermione. She would never admit it to anyone, but she almost enjoyed his company.

Almost.

Well, she hardly felt that she could be blamed. He was intelligent, more intelligent than anyone she had ever talked with before. The conversations she'd had with him were all so interesting and never boring—she'd learned so much in a matter of days. At first she had thought that he would resort to using theories from the Dark Arts; however, she was proven wrong immediately in their first debate. He was proficient in all subjects that she prided herself in—even Muggle subjects, which again astonished her; she'd thought he would've never touched anything Muggle, which was why she could only stare when he used simple science to refute her arguments while they debated about Transfiguration.

She knew she should avoid too much interaction with Riddle. She'd known how dangerous it would be to talk to him, to give him more subtle clues as to how to manipulate her. She'd read all about psychopaths and sociopaths during the short time periods she'd spent with her parents, so she understood that it would be a matter of time before someone would be charmed by Riddle to do things they wouldn't usually do. However, their chats were exhilarating, especially when she had nothing else to do in the room. Therefore, the only thing she could do was pep-talk herself before she went to bed each night, hoping that that, in and of itself, would be enough.

Nonetheless, it was difficult, given how absolutely charming he was when he wasn't threatening to kill or harm her. It was just so easy to forget that he was Lord Voldemort when he was sporting these handsome features, as opposed to the snake-face he'd had.

"Well, I can't say that I'm acquainted with you well enough to know when you are in a good mood or a bad mood," she replied. "For all I know, you can be in a horrendous mood right now."

He laughed softly at her words and took a drink out of his goblet before saying, "Oh yes. I'm definitely in a horrible mood right now, Miss Granger. Better run and hide before I take it out on you."

"Hm … do you reckon it'll be safe enough if I hid inside the bathroom?" she quipped.

He smirked. "Well, it depends."

"On?"

He didn't answer. Instead, he gazed at her for a few seconds before returning his attention back to his food. Out of the blue, she felt a warmness rise from the pit of her stomach, all the way up her neck to her cheeks. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she looked back to her food, not understanding fully what had just happened right then and there.

However, she couldn't prevent that small voice in her mind from whispering:

_Or maybe, you just don't want to understand._

~-0-~

"Aren't you hungry?"

"Just give me another five minutes," she mumbled, biting the nail of one of her forefingers as she flipped another page of the book.

A soft laughter followed her answer. "You said that twenty minutes ago, Hermione."

Ugh. Why did he have to keep talking to her? Didn't he see that she was trying to understand what the damned book was trying to say?

"Another five minutes," she repeated, flipping yet another page.

This did not make any sense at all. What was the author thinking when he made this statement? Surely, he'd had someone look over his paragraphs before getting his books published—

"Hermione," he called.

"Mm …" That should count as an answer. Now stop talking to her. She was thinking.

He laughed again, and the sounds of footsteps coming towards her followed. However, she didn't take any notice of it, until he was standing directly in front of her. Placing both of his hands on the armrests on either side of her, he peered at the page she was on.

"Flamosonus's Theory?" he asked.

"Mm …" she answered, the frown growing on her forehead.

"Having trouble with it?"

The frown deepened even further with his question. She desperately wanted to say "no," since saying "yes" meant that she was admitting a weakness. However … perhaps he would know the answer to her question?

Taking a deep sigh, she flipped back a few pages and pointed at a specific sentence. "_**This**_ does not make sense, all the way up to—" She rapidly flipped the book to a later page. "—here. Everything in the last couple of pages contradict one another, and the words can be interpreted in more ways than one. _**And**_ each way can be correct with the right arguments."

She gazed at him and waited for an answer. He tilted his head to one side and looked back at her.

"Flamosonus is a brilliant wizard," he said. "However, he was an abysmal writer."

She snorted upon hearing his assessment.

"He made things unnecessarily hard to understand, though I suppose it might have been his way of showcasing how smart he was by using unnecessarily difficult words," Riddle continued to say as if he hadn't heard her snort.

_Sounds like someone else we know_, she thought to herself. Hopefully, the person in question didn't pick up that thought in her mind.

If he did, he didn't show it. Instead, he continued to say, "To be honest, the book could've been half its size if Flamosonus were willing to throw his thesaurus in the trash bin where it belongs and concentrated on explaining things better."

"So … what was he trying to say here?" asked Hermione, raising her eyebrows.

A faint smile appeared on his lips. "Let's say you were trying to move an object from one side of the room to the other. Most of the time, you'll need to do all the swishing and flicking. However, incorporating his theory into your casting will allow you to accomplish that without the necessary wand movements. All you need to do is point your wand at the object and direct it over to the other side of the room."

She stared at him. "That's _**it**_? He spent—" She quickly counted the pages. "—_**twenty**_ pages just to explain that? Merlin—"

"Like I've said, brilliant wizard, but a horrible author," he said, amusement etched on his face.

Rolling her eyes, she shook her head, though she could not stop a smile from appearing on her face. However, that was the moment she realized something else.

He was far too close to her.

Heat traveled up to her cheeks, painting them a deep rouge color, and she leaned back in her seat, trying to keep a farther distance from him. However, there was only so much space she could move.

Silently, they eyed one another, and without warning, Hermione's heart skipped a beat as she took in his features. Without warning, he closed the distance between them.

She felt as if she were thrown into an ocean; she had no idea what was wrong or what was right; she could not tell what was the prominent emotion she was feeling—worst of all, she did not know how to react.

His kiss was oh so soft, and she knew that he was—strangely—handing the decision over to her. If she'd chosen to do so, she could push him away immediately. However … she didn't want to.

That pushed the dread inside up a notch, but at the same time … excitement. There was something so alluringly forbidden about what she was doing. It was like a child, watching a flame with fascination and finally reaching out to touching its scorching tendrils.

Then, as quickly as it started, it ended.

However, somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew that this was just the beginning.

~-0-~

"_Traitor … Hermione Granger the traitor …"_

"_Who's there?" She glanced frantically around, but she could not find the source of the voice._

"_Traitor … Hermione Granger the traitor …"_

"_I'm not a traitor!" she hissed angrily, still trying to find the culprit but to no avail._

"_Everyone knew it was a matter of time before Hermione Granger betrayed Harry Potter," the voice said._

"_I'll never betray Harry," she said resolutely as she swirled around._

_A gasp left her lips as she took in the scene before her: It was her, but not her. Hermione had never painted her nails with that extravagant red color, nor had she ever used lipstick of the same color. The clothes her doppelganger was wearing was enough to bring a deep blush to Hermione's cheeks, let alone the look of pure bliss on her face. What was even worse was the seductive look she was wearing as she held—no, _**clung**_ onto Riddle as he placed trails of kisses down her neck. The look in Riddle's eyes was wilder than she had ever seen them, more ambitious, more victorious—yet, it seemed to fit__. Hermione's breathing quickened when she realized that this was _**right**_ Riddle._

"_Kill him for me, Hermione. Show me just how loyal you are to me, my little Mudblood," Riddle hissed as he stared into the eyes of the doppelganger._

"_Yes, my Lord," she said, a dreamy look in her eyes as she took out her wand._

_Without warning, she stared right at Hermione and pointed the wand towards her._

"_I'm sorry, Harry," the doppelganger said coldly. "_Avada Kedavra_."_

With a start, Hermione sat up on her makeshift bed, panting and perspiring. Her eyes flickered around wildly, until she realized that she was still in the same room Riddle had taken her to.

Upon hearing her, Riddle looked up from the book he was reading and took in the dreadful state she was in.

"Bad dream?" he asked.

She avoided making eye contact with him and nodded. A frown appeared on her forehead as she recalled bits and parts of what happened in the nightmare, and out of the blue, she felt like breaking down and sobbing. Slowly, those emotions changed into anger. Anger directed towards both Riddle and herself.

She had been careful. Very careful, to be exact. However, it hadn't stopped her from nearly falling for his charms—or maybe, more appropriately, his trap.

How could she be so stupid?

It should've been more than obvious when he admitted to her that they were in one of the many secret rooms inside the Chamber of Secrets. It was his way of restricting her and imprisoning her. His so-called kindness had been an act to lure her into his trap. However, what aggravated her wasn't that she almost fell for it—it was the fact that she hadn't figured it out earlier. What had happened between Riddle and her in the past few days made the guilt feel even heavier upon her heart, and she couldn't even find the right words to reprimand herself.

"Is something the matter?" asked Riddle.

She shook her head, frightened that he might pick up on her thoughts. She now knew that the Riddle she was facing had all the soul parts; the Room of Requirement had somehow fixed what Tom Marvolo Riddle had ripped apart, perhaps by the magic of the four Founders, as Riddle had said back in the Room of Requirement. However, she still had no idea why he needed her alive. If she didn't keep her guard up, sooner or later, he would get what he wanted and she would've unknowingly assisted him.

"Care to tell me about your nightmare?"

Oh, definitely not. She was positive that he would immediately catch on to what was frightening her if she told him.

"It's … just an old nightmare. A very common one, I've heard. But I just get frightened whenever I dream about it … about falling off a cliff," she lied, not daring to look in his direction. The less clues she gave him about her real feelings, the better.

"Is that so?" he asked quietly, and she had a very nasty feeling that he did not quite believe her explanation.

All of a sudden, he swirled out of his chair and before she could even think about reacting, he was standing in front of her. His hand shot out and grabbed her arm. Pulling her to her feet, his other hand tilted her chin upwards so that she was looking directly at him.

Then, what she didn't want him to know, what she wanted to hide from him, what she didn't care about, all uncontrollably flashed through her mind. The embarrassment of reliving her nightmare was nothing compared to the distress she felt when she "remembered" events she had gone through with Harry—everything she knew about Lord Voldemort, all the advantages the Order could have against the revived Dark Lord was now moot.

Although she'd known that he would've found out everything through Legilimency sooner or later, when it actually happened, it was still a burden on her heart.

When he finally left her mind, she slumped against his lean, but strong, body, every part of her still violently shaking.

"I suppose it would be pointless trying to prove your thoughts otherwise," he said.

The coldness in his voice made her shiver, but it wasn't something she hadn't foreseen—this was the _**right**_ voice. In comparison, it made her feel a whole lot sillier for believing that he would use that somewhat friendly tone of voice with her.

A disdainful snort left her mouth, and still panting from the invasion on her mind, she said, "I'm surprised you didn't realize how stupid it was trying to sway me like that from the beginning. Regardless of how … friendly I am with you, at the end of the day, I will still remember who you are, what you stand for, and what you will do once I've helped you accomplished whatever you want me to do."

A cold laughter answered her words, and she felt a shiver run down her spine.

"You have absolutely no idea how much you've helped me throughout the past few months, Miss Granger," he said.

_Months! I've been in here for __months?_

Suddenly, his hand was in her hair and he pulled on it, hard, forcing her to look at him. She could stop herself from wincing in pain, but she could not control herself from shivering as she gazed at the triumphant expression on his face.

"I didn't help you with anything," she said. However, the firmness in her voice was greatly diminished by the sudden grasp of fear she felt as the cold, dark eyes looking back at her glinted with sadistic pleasure.

"Au contraire, Hermione," he said, purposely using a sickeningly sweet voice when he called her name. "You've gave me back my magic."

She stared at him, confused. What was he talking about? She had seen him cast since the first moment they met, so he'd had magic all along.

"Oh no, Hermione Granger. You've gotten it all wrong, I'm afraid," he said softly.

A wry smile appeared on his face, and he caressed her cheek softly, but his gaze remained mocking and insincere in its care and gentleness.

"I suppose I can be kind enough to give you an explanation," he said offhandedly. "For the past few weeks, or to be precise, after you've so willingly allowed me to kiss you, your magic has been breaking apart the blockades in my body. Without your help and … _**unknowing consent**_, I would have been rendered little less than a Squib or a Muggle."

As he spoke each word, her eyes grew wider and she started shaking her head, as if in denial.

"Yesssss, Granger, you had no idea how easy it would've been for you to stop me from returning to my full potential. You had absolutely no idea that you could've stopped everything with a snap of your fingers—when I cast, I had been using _**your**_ magic. And you'd thought that my specifications for the Room of Requirement had been intelligence." A high, cold laughter that contrasted immensely with his looks left his lips. "I knew I had to think of something logical or else someone with your intelligence would've worked it out sooner or later. I couldn't allow you to be overly cautious around me before you fully surrendered to me and allowed me into your heart.

Not to say you weren't cautious, you were far more careful than all others that I had to manipulate, which made my moment of victory—that moment when you kissed me back—so much sweeter.

"No, everything I've said the moment you asked me about my other specification for the Room of Requirement had been lies. There was no other specification. You couldn't have known how delighted I was to go along with your speculations because of how logical it seemed. I daresay, I probably couldn't have thought of a better excuse than the one you'd so readily gave me. So … I suppose I should thank you again for providing it to me."

"You can't use someone else magic. It—it just doesn't work like that," she protested.

"Fortunately for me and … rather unfortunately for you, you've worn Slytherin's locket before," he said. "My magical core had … touched upon yours while I was delving into your mind, whispering and planting ideas into your subconscious. That also allowed me to tap into your magic this easily. In any other cases …" He paused and then shook his head. "Like I've said, it had to be you."

"That still … that still doesn't answer why I was the only one who heard it … unless someone else heard the whispers before me. You couldn't possibly be sure that I would be the one to open that door," she said shakily, determined to get to the bottom of things.

"Oh no, Granger. It had always been you because _**I**_ was the one who lured you in here," he said.

"That's—that's impossible. Nobody—the Room of Requirement doesn't work like that. You can't possibly—you _**can't**_ change the limits after you're inside the room. You couldn't—you had to set the specifications while you're walking outside the hallway. You—and you didn't know me back in ... whatever year you placed the tiara Horcrux in here," she sputtered.

"That was before the Room of Requirement got destroyed, Hermione Granger. I have to admit that I didn't count on Crabbe Jr. casting Fiendfyre inside the room. However, the limitations had already been set. The Room of Requirement would go to extreme lengths to preserve _**my**_ immortality as I had asked it to. So once you and Potter escaped from this room and closed the door behind you …"

"You were resurrected," she said in a whisper.

"Correct, Miss Granger," he said with a smirk. "And since I've been recreated with the Room of Requirement, let's say that it takes some of my will into its … consideration when allowing someone to find this room again."

"But—but—_Me_. Why me?"

_I'm not Harry._

"You've forgotten one essential thing about all my soul pieces coming back together and … _**creating**_ me. I know everything that each Horcrux knew, which meant that I also possess every single piece of information Harry Potter has." He leaned forward until his lips nearly touched hers. "I knew just how powerful you are—every single one of my Horcruxes knew about that clever, little mind of yours and how powerful you can be if you were to reach your full potential. So I knew, right from the start that if I needed someone to give me back my magic, it had to be someone powerful. My only concern was if you would take the same route as Weasley and Potter and refuse to come back to Hogwarts. However, I knew that my worries had to be for naught; the locket soul piece had delved into your mind and knew just how much you loved to learn. You couldn't possibly resist the chance of coming back here and getting your final year finished. And I'm proven correct because here you are, at my mercy."

Something which he'd never had. However, receiving his mercy was the least of her priorities right now. She had no idea why he seemed to have no intention of killing her; he'd already gotten what he wanted, so it would've been easy for him to just murder her on the spot. Unless … he wanted to use her to hurt Harry? She'd rather die than to let him accomplish that because she knew Harry couldn't bear to see her harmed.

And all of his soul pieces were joined together again. That meant he was mortal again, without his Horcruxes—which meant no more camping if Harry had to go up against Voldemort again.

"Did you honestly believe that I, Lord Voldemort, would only use one simple way to insure my immortality? Especially after going through what happened in the Room of Requirement?" asked Riddle, condescendingly. "I won't … bore you with the details about what I've accomplished, other than my Horcruxes and the Room of Requirement, but I can reassure you that Potter can never kill me, the greatest wizard in the world, especially without you beside him."

"Well, greatest wizard in the world," she lashed out at him, adding a derisive snort at the end to enhance the effect of her words, "I see how amazingly great you are, since you have to resort to using a _**Mudblood's**_ magic to get your own magic back. Wonder what all your Death Eaters will say about that."

Anger fleeted across his eyes before he pulled an indifferent mask over his face. "Perhaps I've been overestimating your intelligence if you actually think that I would follow all those rules."

"Rules that were set by you," she pointed out.

"Correct, and have you never once wondered why those rules were set in place?" he asked.

She gazed at him, puzzled.

"Control, Miss Granger. The pure-blood families in the wizarding world will always have a higher status than Muggle-borns and half-bloods, regardless of what government is running the state, simply because they are born into this world, rather than the Muggle world. I do not pretend that I do not hate Muggles; however, I also know that there are worthy Muggle-borns, or else I wouldn't have offered Lily Potter a chance to live."

"You've offered her the chance to live because of Snape," she retorted.

"Yes, I did … but that was _**after **_I've offered James Potter and her a chance to join me—"

"Join you? As in becoming a Death Eater?" asked Hermione.

Either he was lying or she was having a very bizarre nightmare.

"No, to become part of the Order of the Phoenix," he said sarcastically.

She fell silent after his declaration. She supposed it did make sense, since the prophecy did say that the Potters thrice defied the Dark Lord, and Harry, Ron, and she had never found out _**how**_ they'd defied Voldemort.

"Regardless … regardless of that, you're wrong if you think I'm going down without a fight, Riddle," she said quietly.

Much to her surprise, he laughed upon hearing her words.

"Such a naïve little girl. I've never assumed that you weren't going to fight. On the contrary, I knew and hoped that you would fight tooth and nail against me," he said. The smile on his face widened. "There's a certain … satisfaction with conquering someone as particularly wild as you are, dearest. I believe that I'll find every moment of turning you over to the Dark Side highly enjoyable. And trust me: One day, I'll have you kneeling in front of me with adoration in your eyes and addressing me as your Lord."

~-0-~

_Finis._


End file.
